Reading, listening to, and questioning America... from the southern Great Plains

"Hard-charging," "relentless." And a Republican toady in the run-up to the election?

That's what worries me about the FBI agent, Frederick Humphries. He smells of strong tea.

The agent, Frederick W. Humphries II, 47, is also described by former
colleagues as relentless in his pursuit of what he sees as wrongdoing,
which appears to describe his role in the F.B.I. investigation involving
Mr. Petraeus. Suspecting that the case involved serious security issues
and was being stalled, possibly for political reasons — a suspicion his
superiors say was unjustified — he took his concerns to Congressional
Republicans.

“Fred is a passionate kind of guy,” one former colleague said. “He’s
kind of an obsessive type. If he locked his teeth onto something, he’d
be a bulldog.”...NYT

He took his concerns to Congressional Republicans, not to, say, "leaders of the Intelligence Committees" in a "private session," or something less partisan than that. It was just before an important election, an election that the Republicans were about to lose. So he took his concerns to Congressional Republicans. Hmmm....

Oh, and Humphries appointed himself bulldog. The FBI didn't.

By all accounts, Mr. Humphries doggedly pursued Ms. Kelley’s
cyberstalking complaint. Though he was not assigned to the case, he was
admonished by supervisors who thought he was trying to improperly insert
himself into the investigation.

In late October, fearing that the case was being stalled for political
reasons, Mr. Humphries contacted Representative Dave Reichert, a
Republican from Washington State, where the F.B.I. agent had worked
previously, to inform him of the case. Mr. Reichert put him in touch
with the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, who passed the message to
Mr. Mueller. ...NYT

The FBI agent is a known political conservative. Republicans, maybe caught in their own sting, seem to be backing away from him.

On Wednesday, Mr. Cantor said he had no intention of “politicizing” the
tip from Mr. Humphries, whom he did not name. “The information that was
sent to me sounded as if there was a potential for a national security
vulnerability,” Mr. Cantor said. ...NYT

__

The GOP needs something that helps them explain to themselves why they lost so hugely last week. Eric Cantor and an FBI agent seem to have found something that, at the very least, reminds them of the taste of blood. They clearly hope to fan l'affaire Humphries-Kelley into a bonfire.

Meanwhile, their fallback has become their hatred and fear of "urban America."

In a conference call with fund-raisers and donors to his campaign,
Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the
“old playbook” of using targeted initiatives to woo specific interest
groups — “especially the African-American community, the Hispanic
community and young people.”

“In each case, they were very
generous in what they gave to those groups,” Mr. Romney said,
contrasting Mr. Obama’s strategy to his own of “talking about big issues
for the whole country: military strategy, foreign policy, a strong
economy, creating jobs and so forth.”

Mr. Romney’s comments in the
20-minute conference call came after his running mate, Representative
Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, told WISC-TV in Madison on Monday that their
loss was a result of Mr. Obama’s strength in “urban areas,” an analysis
that did not account for Mr. Obama’s victories in more rural states like
Iowa and New Hampshire or the decrease in the number of votes for the
president relative to 2008 in critical urban counties in Ohio. ...Caucus, NYT

___

Does Eric Holder look like a member of urban America to Republicans? Is that why he's a target for their endless questions and investigations and imputations? Whatever. Rounding up all the symptoms of the GOP's mental and social disorders takes more time than you and I have.

But we need to keep an eye on them. Republicans are turning up the heat on Eric Holder — again.

Top-ranking
GOP lawmakers in the House are pressing the attorney general to answer
questions about his role in the FBI investigation that led to David
Petraeus stepping down as head of the CIA. ...The Hill

On Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller made the rounds, briefing
members in the House and Senate in an attempt to assuage worries about
why Congress was not told of the probe before Election Day. The FBI is
within the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Holder reportedly
learned about the FBI’s investigation, which began as early as June,
around the end of the summer. But he did not share the information,
which involved emails sent to and from Petraeus’s personal account, with
either President Obama or members of Congress until last week. ...The Hill

This is like Republicans storming the news kiosk down on the corner and demanding the latest issue of the National Enquirer. "We want our sex scandal and we want it now!"

But Congress doesn't pressure Justice unless the issue is a clear matter of national security. Which it wasn't before the election and it still isn't. If it turns out that the FBI agent, Frederick Humphries, acted as a rogue agent and a Republican toady, then we have something approaching a national security issue. No democracy remains secure when its police are used for political gain.